


Pancakes and Lead

by LunaPadma



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Armed gunmen, Captain America Fangirling, Diners, F/M, Food, Gen, Idaho, Ignores Civil War, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pancakes, Presidents, Road Trip, president puns, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:40:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaPadma/pseuds/LunaPadma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy didn't exactly plan to meet Captain America's best friend in a rural diner in Idaho, but now they're fleeing cross-country in a stolen car with crazed gunmen on their tail.</p><p>This probably could have been avoided if they'd just gone to the IHOP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I started this before Civil War and then didn't finish it. Suffice it to say, Bucky was hiding in the US the whole time, nobody blew up the UN, and the Avengers are still very much together.  
> (This is also my longest chapter, because breaking up a 9,000-word one-shot is hard. My b, everyone.)

“Welcome to the Presidential Pancake House!” the hostess said cheerily. “Take a seat wherever, someone will be over to take your order shortly!”

Darcy, smiling so the hostess wouldn’t be suspicious, leaned into her boyfriend and whispered, “There’s an IHOP only a mile up the road.”

Ian smiled broadly and slid into a booth, somewhat closer to the creepy-looking drifter in a hoodie than Darcy would have liked. “Nonsense!” he said. “It’s a taste of Americana!”

“Taste of E. Coli, more like,” Darcy muttered.

The waitress appeared at that moment, cutting off Ian’s response. “Can I get you two anything to drink?”

“Coffee, black,” Darcy said.

“Orange juice, please.” Ian opened the menu. “How clever! Every one of these dishes named after a president.”

“Dibs on Fillmore’s dish,” Darcy said immediately.

“Have fun eating the Mill(ar)d Fill-more Oatmeal, then,” Ian said. “I would have pegged you for the Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Steak Sandwich, personally.”

Darcy sighed and opened the menu. Perhaps she’d pass on the oatmeal. What did she want? The George Washington Cherry Pie Waffles looked pretty good, but did she want something sweet or savory? Maybe Eisenhower’s Eggy Pancakey Plate, then.

“Hang on, why does Grover Cleveland get two entrees and no one else? He’s not even the one on your money!”

Darcy laughed. “He was the 22nd and 24th president,” she explained. “Non-consecutive terms, non-consecutive menu items.”

Ian clearly had a hard time grasping that. “So they count him twice? That isn’t fair!”

“That’s America for you,” Darcy said. “Actually, that’s how I plan on doing it. Darcy Lewis, first _and second_ woman president!”

“Well, I think you’d make a stellar president. And breakfast sandwich,” Ian said. “Do I want the Martin van Buren Breakfast Burrito or the Franklin D-Licious Breakfast on a Roll-sevelt?”

“Pick fast,” Darcy advised. “The waitress is coming back.”

“You order first,” Ian demanded. “I’m still choosing.”

“Are you two ready to order, or should I come back?” the waitress asked.

Darcy glanced down at the menu and picked the first thing she saw. “I’ll have the John Adams Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes,” she said, placing her menu behind the condiment stand.

Ian shook his head. “Can I do the James Buchanan Bacon-and-Sausage omelet?” he asked. “No cilantro, please.”

As Ian placed his order, Darcy could have sworn the creepy drifter flinched. Perhaps he was one of those people who freaked out at the sound of words like “moist” or “cilantro” or “turgid.”

“And I would be honored to serve as your First Lad,” Ian said. “I’d make an exceptional side dish.”

Darcy made a highly unflattering sound somewhere between _pffft_ and _pshaw_. “As if I’d pick you as my First Lad. No thank you, I _want_ to get elected.”

“Am I not good enough?” Ian asked, laughing.

“Ian, you’re British,” Darcy said, as if it explained everything. “I can hardly run with a foreigner weighing me down. Especially since, historically, we haven’t liked you people. It’s hard enough being a female politician; I don’t need to add more issues.”

“I’m a hero!” Ian protested. “I saved the world!”

“You’re a sidekick at best,” Darcy said condescendingly. “My sidekick, and I’m already a sidekick. You’re, like, the sidekick’s sidekick. Besides, who the hell cares? It took place in London—”

“Greenwich.”

“—England, whatever. No, if I’m going to be elected, I need a real hero. One that saved New York.”

“Are you really going to throw me over for Thor?” Ian said, laughing.

Darcy came relatively close to shooting hot coffee out of her nose at that point. “Do you even know how America works?” she asked. “Marry Thor and make him First Lad, that’s a great idea. Bring an illegal alien into the White House, Darcy, that won’t piss off the Right at all. My god! Do you even politic?”

“Who, then?”

“I need a real hero, a true American. Someone who’s give their life for their country already. A war veteran, obviously. A real patriot in all ways. And, of course, someone really attractive, just in case.”

Ian groaned and buried his head in his arms. “Don’t say it.”

Darcy ignored her boyfriend’s pleadings. “I need the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan himself,” she announced. “Captain-Fucking-America.”

This time, the drifter definitely flinched.

“You’re throwing me over for Captain America?” Ian asked. “I’m hurt.”

“Steve Rogers is the perfect choice for First Lad!” Darcy said! “He’s everything you could ask for in a campaign accessory.”

The drifter spun around, and Darcy gasped.

Darcy Lewis was not known for her subtlety. So when James Buchanan Barnes—alias Bucky, alias the Winter Soldier, aka #3 on Buzzfeed’s _40 Hottest Guys from the 40s_ , aka Captain America’s boyhood BFF and, if sensationalist “historian” Deborah Melling and Tumblr were to be believed, fuck buddy—revealed himself to be the creepy drifter, Darcy immediately lost her shit.

“Holy shit!” she shrieked. “I can’t believe you’re here! Do you know how many emails I get from Captain America asking me to report back to him if I find anything out about where you might be? I only met the guy once, at the Christmas party, and I was drunk enough that I definitely embarrassed myself there, so now when I email him about finding you, all he’s going to think is, ‘oh god, why is that weird drunk girl who kept dumping her drinks on me so I would take my shirt off emailing me?’ What the fuck are you doing in Idaho?”

Bucky Barnes looked like he was about to dive out the nearest window and take off running, so Ian stepped in. “We’re not going to arrest you or anything,” he said calmly, a stark contrast to Darcy’s manic speech. “We don’t—didn’t work with SHIELD, or HYDRA, or even the Avengers. She is only on the Avengers’ mailing list because she used to intern with Jane Foster, who’s Thor’s girlfriend. We didn’t even know you’d be here; we’re just on a road trip around the US.”

“If you want, we don’t even have to tell Captain America where we found you,” Darcy offered. “But please text him or something, the guy’s been a mess since that whole DC shitshow.”

“Is the red Prius in the back of the lot your car?” Bucky Barnes asked.

“Yeah,” Darcy said. “But if you’re going to steal it, please take my backpack out of it; I can’t afford a new computer.”

“Get under your table,” Barnes said calmly, “and when I tell you to go, run as fast as you can to it and drive away. Do you understand?”

“So, are you coming with us or—JESUS MOTHERFUCKER!” Darcy screeched as a bullet went through her shoulder. Ian immediately dove under the table. “Who the F is shooting at us?”

“Under the table, _now._ ”

Darcy slid under the table without further protest. Ian noticed she was crying. “Why does it never look like it hurts in the movies?” she asked. “Because, _fuck_. Look, there’s a fucking hole in my shoulder!”

Ian was actively trying not to look. Blood freaked him out, and he really didn’t think puking would help the situation.

“Run!” the Winter Soldier ordered, and Ian grabbed Darcy’s hand as they took off running, Bucky right behind them.

Ian threw himself into the front seat, Darcy dove into the back, and the Winter Soldier leaned out the passenger side window and shot at the black-clad soldiers that had been trying to kill them. Ian started the car and they pulled out of the Presidential Pancake House like a bat out of Hell.

“Where am I going?” he asked.

“Big area, where we can get lost. We need to change cars, too,” Barnes said.

“There’s a Wal-Mart two-point-three miles away,” Darcy offered. “We could switch cars there, and maybe buy some medical supplies more advanced than a Shamwow?”

Ian swerved dramatically ahead of a large truck, a risky move on the one lane highway. Darcy swore loudly. “If you hit another pothole, I’m taking a chainsaw to your junk and sautéing it.”

Ian giggled a little bit, likely out of nerves. “I love you, too.” He turned into the Wal-Mart lot and parked neatly between two minivans.

The Winter Soldier—Darcy couldn’t really think of him as Bucky Barnes anymore, not since people started firing guns at her—jumps out of the Prius and begins to hot-wire the SUV. “Get everything you want out of the car,” he ordered.

Ian popped the Prius’s trunk and pulled out a carry-on suitcase, a scuffed-up duffel bag, and two backpacks, one black and one purple. The trunk on the red minivan popped open, and Ian began to throw the bags into it.

By now, Darcy had pulled herself out of the backseat. “I don’t mean to be the rain on our little parade of fugitives, but there’s a bunch of black SUVs blocking all the exits.”

The Winter Soldier swore loudly in Russian. Ian, however, smiled. “They never saw my face,” he said. “Just the back of my head. I think I’ve got an idea. You two get in the back.”

“What is this plan?” the Winter Soldier asked, clearly not impressed.

Ian explained quickly. Darcy could tell that the Soldier didn’t like it, but he got in the trunk without complaint. Darcy half-fell on top of him. “Sorry!” she squeaked, her knee digging into his crotch.

“Mrrrfffrrrggg.”

Ian shut the trunk, got into the front seat, and started driving. As he approached the parking lot exit, he rolled down the window and asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me how to get back to the highway?”

Two men approached the car. They were wearing camouflage, and Ian could see the outlines of guns in their belts. “What?” the taller of the two asked.

Ian smiled guiltily. “My mates sent me off to make the beer run,” he explained, “but I forgot my wallet, and my phone died, and I’m all turned around trying to find our campsite. It’s near Lava Hot Springs, I think? I know I took the freeway here.”

One of them pulled out his phone. “Do you remember the name of the campsite?” he asked.

Ian shook his head. “I remember it was a bit back from the road, on some curvy dirt trail, but Mike made the reservations and I was napping when we got there. If you can just point the way to the road, I think I’ll be able to find it.”

“Take a left on Epstein,” the taller one said. “Then you should see the entrance past Norton. You want to go South to get back to Lava Springs.”

“Thanks so much,” Ian said with a bright, guileless smile. He made to drive off, but the shorter one stopped him.

“You haven’t seen this man, have you?” he asked, presenting a picture of Bucky Barnes.

“Er, no. I don’t think so,” Ian said. “Is he wanted for something? He looks a bit like that bloke on that old show, you know? Gossiping Girls? My ex was a fan. He looks like the older brother of that rich bastard who Blake Lively dated for a bit, the one everyone hated because he’d blackmailed her or something.”

The taller one reconsidered the picture. “He _does_ look a bit like Carter Baizen.”

Ian snapped his fingers and pointed at the taller one. “That’s the bloke’s name! This one’s got better hair, though. Tell you what, I’ll keep an eye out and let you know if I see him. Do I call 999, or…?”

The shorter one pulled out a business card and handed it through the window. “Call this if you see him, Mr….?”

“Wright,” Ian said easily. “Jack Wright.”

“Mr. Wright.”

“Of course. Thanks for the directions, lads, and good luck finding him!”

Ian drove away merrily, and nobody spoke for the next five minutes, until they were well on the freeway (heading north) and zipping along.

“Get your knee out of my crotch,” the Winter Soldier ordered, breaking the silence.

Darcy tried to push herself up, but failed. “Ow, _fuck_ ,” she said, as her elbow dug into his stomach—a welcome change from her knee and his crotch, she was sure. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re fine,” the Asset muttered. He reached up and grabbed the window ledge, pulling himself into a seated position, and sending Darcy face-first into his lap. Carefully avoiding her shoulder, he pulled her up against him so she was sitting in his lap.

“Is there a direction I should be driving?” Ian asked. “There’s a fork coming up. Do we want to head toward Montana or Canada?”

“Montana,” the Asset decided. There would be more security at the border.

“Should we call the Avengers?” Darcy asked. “Like, they could come pick us up. Or just Captain America, he would totally come rescue us.”

The Asset considered the question. Did he want to involve Steven Rogers in this? Is this how he wanted them to meet? “Not yet,” he says instead, not an outright rejection but close.

They settled back into silence, less tense than before. After a while, Darcy leaned her head back onto his shoulder—the metal one—and closed her eyes. With a little sigh, she nestled against his neck, drew his arm—the flesh one—around her like a blanket and fell asleep.

The Asset froze up like—well, like the Asset froze after every mission. “Um.”

“Did Darcy fall asleep on you?” Ian asked softly.

“Yes,” he squeaked.

Ian laughed. “She does this every time there’s a quiet bit on a car ride. Just leave her back there if it bothers you, she’s used to it. I once forgot her in the car overnight in Georgia. I’d left one of the back windows open, thank God, but she didn’t talk to me again until we hit Florida.”

Ian, the Asset decided, was a babbler who liked to fill dead air.

“It’s…okay,” the Asset said, trying out the words. It sort of _was_ okay. Darcy Lewis looked eerily like another tiny, pale kid he remembered, with dark brown hair and big brown eyes. Becky Barnes had, out of the four of them, been the only one to get Mom’s eyes. Benny had pulled Dad’s blue ones, same as he had, and Betty had been the freak who’d gotten Granddad’s green ones.

Ian didn’t say anything, simply changed lanes to get on the freeway to Montana. Darcy burrowed closer into his shoulder, mumbling something that sounded eerily like “Death to nonbelievers” in Russian. The Asset looked down at the top of her beanied head and hoped she didn’t speak Russian or believed in killing nonbelievers.

He wanted to believe that she was still innocent, still kept from the wars raging all over the world. Even though she wasn’t a little girl from Brooklyn, even though she got shot in a diner in rural Idaho, even though she swears worse than an Irish teamster, he still hoped she was innocent.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road trips, the Winter Soldier learns, are sharing times.

“Um, we’re almost out of gas,” Ian said awkwardly, not sure how to address the Asset. “Should I stop and put some more in?”

The Asset considered the question. They were hopefully far enough ahead of their pursuers that they could stop for supplies. Quickly. “Yes.”

He nudged Darcy with the metal arm. “Get up,” he ordered.

She blinked her eyes open. “Are we at the Lava Hot Springs?” she asked tiredly. Then she sat up straighter—almost head-butting the Asset in the process—and looked around. “Did I fall asleep on you?” she asked, embarrassed. The Asset nodded. “I’m sorry, today’s been just a total shitshow. Why are we stopping?”

“We need gas,” Ian said. “Can we buy food as well?”

The Asset considered. It would take at least four minutes to fill their tank, so they had the time. But the last thing they wanted was anyone to recognize them. “Later,” he said. “Open the trunk, Ian.”

The trunk dutifully popped open, and the Asset carefully helped Darcy out and into the backseat. He climbed into the front seat. Ian hovered awkwardly by the gas pump. “Should I just pay with a credit card?” he asked. “Because if we go in and pay cash, they’ll know our face, but if not, they can track our cards—how much power do these people have?”

“Pay with a credit card,” Darcy advised. “It’s a lot harder to get credit card info, especially if you don’t have a warrant. I should know, I’ve tried. It says something about this country that it’s easier to hack into the DMV and sell fake IDs than it is to break into MasterCard.”

Ian nodded grimly and inserted his card into the gas pump. The Asset spun around and stared at the slight, dark-haired girl in the back seat. Why would she need to steal credit card information, especially if she wasn’t connected with SHIELD?

“My ex-boyfriend ran off with my laptop, my brother’s cat, and six hundred dollars,” Darcy explained. “I tried to hack into their database to see if I could figure out where he went. The cops didn’t give two shits because I was staying with my brother in Texas, and apparently, it’s not a felony unless it’s in excess of $2500. Will eventually found the bastard legally, but not after I almost got arrested for attempted identity theft. Which wasn’t the goal at all! I wanted purchases, not numbers.”

Ian climbed back into the car. “Regaling him with your criminal past?” he asked. “It’s all lies,” he informed the Asset. “She does this all the time. She got a single citation, and she immediately changed her major from computer science to poli-sci out of fear.”

“It was more than a citation! Just because I was never charged does not mean—”

They continued bickering until the gas tank was filled, then Ian climbed out and finished the transaction. “Um, did you want to drive?” he asked.

The Asset shook his head, and Ian climbed back in, started the car, and took it back onto the freeway, still heading toward Montana. Darcy hummed softly with a song that came on the radio. Ian broke the silence only to ask which freeway exits he should take. They stayed this way for about an hour, maybe longer.

“I don’t mean to sound rude or ungrateful or anything, but I have to ask,” Darcy said, breaking the silence. “Why are you helping us?”

“What?” the Asset asked, jerked out of his reverie.

“If it’s just because of the Avengers thing, I feel like I have to point out that we’re so low on the Avenger totem pole, I think Loki is more of a member than we are. At least Thor doesn’t hate Loki the way he hates Ian.”

“You recognized me,” he said. “You recognized me and you engaged. They would have tortured and killed you.”

The silence weighed heavily on the car until Darcy started laughing. “Yeah, but not as badly as Thor’s going to kill you after he finds out you let me get shot, Ian.”

Ian laughed as well. “He really hates me, doesn’t he?”

“Yah,” Darcy said. “Obviously. Did I tell you Jane caught him trying to buy you a ticket back to London a few weeks ago?”

“No, you left that part out.”

“Why does he hate you?” the Asset asked, almost before he thought about it.

“Oh, the usual. I’m weak and pathetic and Darcy’s too good for me, mostly. I wouldn’t mind—might even agree with him—except that he spends a lot of his time trying to find Darcy a new boyfriend.”

“He keeps trying to set me up with his Asgardian friends on blind dates. I’ve been on, like, five of them.”

“The worst part about it was she brings me along on them,” Ian complained. “One of them, this guy with a huge mustache, propositioned us for a threesome!” Behind them Darcy started laughing. “And that’s all that happened, and there is nothing else to the story,” he added quickly.

“Oh no,” Darcy said. “You want to talk about Pornstache, we can talk about Pornstache. What Ian is leaving out is that he misunderstood Pornstache’s request and thought he was asking if we all wanted to split dessert, and so he said, and here I quote, “You two can do whatever you want, but I’m not sharing my spotted dick,” which is this godawful British dessert, which is, obviously, wholly unknown on Asgard, so now everybody on Asgard thinks that he’s some sort of crazy, herpes-ridden chronic masturbator.”

“That’s it?” Ian asked. “I thought we were telling the whole story. What _she’s_ leaving out is that when she got up to use the bathroom, he followed her. He was still trying to get lucky at this point. We’re in this nice restaurant—quiet, multiple forks, only lit by the candles at each table—and all of a sudden we hear screams. Darcy is lying on the ground sobbing because she somehow managed to dislocate her kneecap kicking him in the crotch.”

“I was trying to knee him in the balls, actually,” Darcy corrected. “Gods’ crotches are very hard.” She paused, then continued, “Pun intended, I think he had a boner.”

“He had to help us home—”

“Yeah, because you were too busy taking pictures and dying of laughter, you traitor!”

“He had to help us home, and he spent the whole time apologizing to her—for dislocating her kneecap, not for propositioning her outside the ladies’ room.”

“Well, the joke’s on you, Ian, because three of those blind dates—including Pornstache—were at the Avengers’ Christmas Party and were totally hitting on me.”

“Wait, which three?” Ian protested.

“There was Pornstache and that Hagrid look-a-like who kept trying to arrange my marriage to his son. Oh, and the quiet Asian one from Anaheim.”

“Vanaheim.”

“Yeah, Vanaheim.”

“I liked him!”

“You liked him because he didn’t hit on me in front of you, but that was the one where you showed up half an hour late. He was heavily flirting before you got there.”

“Really? He barely said two words all dinner. Besides, he was really nice when he brought you home after the party.”

“Just because he didn’t take advantage of my drunk ass and didn’t let me take advantage of Captain America’s sober ass doesn’t make him a nice guy!”

“That’s literally the definition of a nice guy!”

As he listened to the two of them argue about what made a nice guy, the Asset suddenly understood what they were doing. They were trying to make him feel more comfortable. Like he was part of their group. They were probably hoping that being a member of a group might make him less likely to kill them.

A false assumption.

The two fed off of each other, trying to one-up each other with more and more ridiculous stories. Darcy was the wilder, louder one, but Ian gave just as good as he got.

It occurred to the Asset that he enjoyed hearing them argue. That he enjoyed their company.

“Okay,” Darcy conceded. “Hogun may have been performing a nice guy acts the night of the Christmas party, but that doesn’t mean he’s overall a nice guy!”

“He’s friends with Thor; they do warrior stuff together! He’s clearly a nice guy!” Ian protested.

“Thor doesn’t have the best judgement in bros. Case in point: Loki.”

“You can’t keep injecting Loki into every argument. It’s the argumentative equivalent of bringing up Nazis any time we’re discussing Germany.”

“I’m not some dickheaded internet commentator, Ian. Thor’s best friend _and brother_ is a homicidal megalomaniac. It’s a valid concern!”

“It was one mistake. You don’t trust him?”

“I’m just saying that his judgement is somewhat flawed. For example, trusting Vision. Like, what the fuck makes someone ‘worthy?’”

“Now you don’t trust Vision? You have to get over losing the title of “Queen of the Beer Pong Table” eventually!”

“It’s not that! And he totally cheated, nobody told me I was playing against a fucking Terminator! I’m just saying that we barely know what the fuck a Mind Stone is except that it totally was the basis for Ultron. That’s not a bit worrisome?”

“Call him,” the Asset interrupted. He knew that the soldiers had to be on their tail, and he refused to let Darcy and Ian die on his account. If they were all to make it to safety, they needed an Avenger’s help. Darcy had been right in the diner. Steve Rogers would do anything for his friends, even steal a jet and rescue them.

“I don’t think Hogun has a cell phone,” Darcy said. “Besides, he’d probably just say he was a nice guy, which leads to other questions, like how trustworthy is he, and—”

The Asset shook his head. “Rogers,” he said. “Call Steve Rogers and tell him to pick us up.”

“Oh!” Darcy said. “Um, I don’t have his number, but I’m gonna email him, then text FRIDAY to tell him about it, and if he doesn’t respond quickly, I know Jane has Stark’s number, but she’s shit at responding, so I don’t know how much help it’d be, but I can try—”

He had no idea what she was saying. “Just do it.”

“Right. Yeah. Yeah, I’m emailing him now.”


	3. Reinforcements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Captain America learns about the Road Trip from Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's tiny. Sorry.

Captain Steve Rogers always told FRIDAY not to bother him during his workouts. It was his one chance to be free from technology. The basics of boxing hadn’t exactly changed in the 70 years he was in the ice.

 _Captain Rogers, you have received an email from Darcy Lewis, subject line “URGENT URGENT SUPER FUCKING URGENT”,_ Friday announced.

It took him a while to place the name. He’d only interacted with Jane Foster’s intern once, and she’d been so drunk, he doubted she remembered it. “What does it say?” he asked finally, catching the punching bag so it wouldn’t hit him in the face.

 _“Captain America,”_ Friday read.  “ _Have found the Winter Soldier. Are currently engaged in cross-country fleeing from bad guys with guns. Somewhere between Idaho and Montana, heading east. Please come pick us up. Bring medical personnel and/or supplies. My number is (872) 555-0126. Call when close, and I can give you a better sense of where the fuck we are. Please hurry. Darcy.”_

Steve took a moment to process her email. How had she found Bucky? Why were they both in Idaho? Who needed medical attention?

He shook his head. None of that mattered. “FRIDAY,” he said, sounding much calmer than he felt. “Prepare a quinjet. Tell Sam Wilson and Helen Cho about the email, and ask them to meet me in the hanger.”

_Noted._

He ran out of the room and grabbed his already-packed Mission bag before heading to the hanger.


	4. Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy Lewis remembers why the hell people do things like run marathons.

“So, um, someone is calling me,” Darcy announces to the mostly-silent car, maybe two hours after she emailed Captain America. “I don’t recognize the number, but it could be Captain America. Of course, it could also not be Captain America and instead be the guys who are chasing us, who got my number from the rental car place. Should I answer it?”

“How does tracing a call work?” Ian asked. “Do you have to answer it, or…”

“Just answer it,” the Winter Soldier said gloomily. “If we miss—” Steve—“our ride, it’ll be worse.”

Hesitantly, Darcy hit the Accept Call button, and put it on speaker. “Hello?”

“Gotcha,” an unfamiliar male said before hanging up. The Winter Soldier spun around. Nobody was tailing them yet, but that could change at any time.

“Well, fuck,” Darcy whispered. “Please please please be close, Cap.” Her phone rang again. “Oh, thank God, this one’s FRIDAY.” She answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Darcy?” Steve Rogers asked. “We’re almost there, FRIDAY is tracking your phone right now. We’re about five minutes out. Take the number 32 exit and we’ll meet you off the road. Sam says that there’s a cornfield off the road. Meet us there.”

A bullet pierced through the back windshield and buried itself in the Winter Soldier’s headsets. Darcy shrieked.

“Everyone get down!” the Asset shouted. He only had one gun on him. Six bullets weren’t enough. They had to hope they could make it to the plane before the gunmen caught them.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked. “Was that a gunshot?”

Darcy bent double. “They’ve found us! Ian, drive, fucking drive!”

“I’m trying not to die!” Ian protested, but he stepped on the gas. The car lurched forward. They took the exit at 81 mph and almost tipped over. By the grace of God, they avoided a crash and straightened out.

“Darcy, are you all okay?” Steve yelled from the phone.

“We’re off the freeway,” Darcy said. She raised her head slightly, just in time to see a bullet crack the driver’s side wing mirror. “We’re still being totally shot at. Please tell me you’ve landed.”

She didn’t have to say that. She could see the plane landing in the middle of a field only a few hundred yards away.

Then a bullet blew out their tire. Ian screamed as the Winter Soldier ripped the wheel from his hand and somehow managed to keep them from flipping over. Darcy barely managed to brace herself against the door.

Miraculously, they coasted to a stop barely fifty yards from the plane’s entrance. Darcy could even see Captain America nervously pacing in the belly of the plane. Cargo hold? She didn’t really know.

“When I say to, get out of the car and run as fast as you can to the plane,” the Winter Soldier ordered. He pulled a gun out from his sweatshirt and took the safety off. “I’ll cover you.”

“But aren’t you coming?” Darcy asked.

“After,” he said, taking careful aim at the black SUV behind them. “Now run.”

Darcy was pretty sure that he was lying, but considering last time she hadn’t done exactly what he asked, she’d ended up with a bullet in her shoulder, she didn’t press the issue. She simply threw her door open and started running, Ian just ahead of her.

Almost immediately, she wished that she’d done that thing where you go to the gym and practice running so when you’re running for your life, you aren’t going to die. God, she was so out of shape. Ian was one of those people who looked like a soft nerd-type but actually did things like triathlons and stuff, so it didn’t surprise her that he pulled away quickly.

When the first bullet punched through her thigh, Darcy wasn’t proud that her first thought was, _oh thank God, I can sit down_. That was just before the agonizing pain and the second bullet hit her in the abdomen.

She hit the ground hard and stayed there, waiting for a third (fourth? How many times had she been shot today?) bullet to finish her off. She hoped that Ian would honor her dying wishes and get Captain America to sing “Star-Spangled Man with a Plan” at her funeral.


	5. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve persists in believing the best in people. Ian simply rewrites the past.

As soon as the first bullet hit her, the Asset took off running. She hadn’t screamed. Darcy Lewis screamed and swore about potholes and Russian assassins coming back from the dead and bullet wounds to the shoulder, about everything and anything. That she didn’t now scared the absolute shit out of him.

He didn’t know how he knew, but he stretched out his arm and plucked Steve’s shield out of the sky without looking and held it over Darcy’s prone body as he assessed the damage.

She was breathing. She had black blood pooling on her abdomen, evidence of a lacerated liver. Much more pressing, however, was the fountaining blood coming from her leg. The bullet must have pierced her femoral artery, he determined.

He gripped her thigh tightly, hoping to at least slow the bleeding, and threw her over his shoulder. Even then, she didn’t scream, though he was sure the pain was agonizing. He ran to the plane, bullets pinging off the shield, and prayed that Steve had brought a medic.

The last time he didn’t want somebody to die was on the banks of the Potomac. He couldn’t remember before that.

Steve was already yelling for Sam—the pilot, he assumed—to take off when the Asset made it onto the plane. An Asian woman had somehow coerced Ian into helping her drag out a strange glass-and-metal contraption into the center of the plane’s cargo hold.

The contraption looked eerily similar to the cryogenic chamber he spent so much time in.

He hadn’t realized that he was shaking until Ian ran up and laid a clammy hand on his shoulder. “Is she alive?” he asked softly. The Asset snapped to, and carefully laid her out on the floor. He kept his hand locked around her thigh, hoping that it might help slightly.

Cryo was better than death, he told himself. It might have even been true.

Ian took one look at the black blood and the red fountain before turning away. “Fuck,” he whispered. The Asset was surprised; Ian wasn’t the swearing type. “Fuck,” he repeated. He grabbed her fingers and squeezed tightly.

The Asian woman glanced over. “If you’re going to throw up, don’t do it over there. I need a clean workspace,” she told Ian. Seemingly out of nowhere, she produced a pair of scissors and tossed them at the Asset. He barely caught them. “Cut everything off,” she ordered. “She needs to be completely naked for the Cradle to work.”

Mechanically, the Asset began cutting awkwardly with one hand. Silently, Ian let go of Darcy’s hand and gripped her thigh with both hands. He still wasn’t looking at her. The Asset didn’t say anything, simply removed his own hand and continued cutting. The shirt had stuck to her bullet wounds, and Darcy gasped as he pulled the ruined fabric off. Though he knew it was ridiculous, he averted his eyes when he cut her bra off.

When he got to her jeans, her hand feebly nudged his. “Hey…” she gasped weakly. “Buy me dinner first.”

Ian snorted. Someone—likely Steve—made a choking noise. The Asset merely smiled at her, utterly relieved that she wasn’t dead. “How about if I make breakfast, doll?”

“Kay.”

He continued cutting her pants and underwear off, resolutely avoiding looking at any part of her naked body, focusing only on the scissors. He peeled one leg away, but left the other. “Is it ready?” he asked.

The woman hit a few more buttons, then nodded. “You can put her in.”

Ian let go, and blood started fountaining again instead of merely pouring. In one quick motion, the Asset ripped away the rest of her jeans, picked her up, and deposited her in the Cradle. The Asian woman hit a final button, and the machine hummed to life.

“She’ll be fine,” the woman said, trying to placate both Ian and the Asset. “The Cradle will fix everything up in a hurry. She’ll be back on her feet in no time.”

Ian remained on the floor, staring at the blood on his hands with a look of sick horror. “Fuck,” he repeated for the third time—this time sounding very close to tears.

The Asian woman grabbed his shoulder and carefully coaxed him up, then into the plane’s bathroom. “We’re going to get you cleaned up,” she repeated. “Everything will be fine. Your girl’s going to be okay.”

The Asset looked down at the blood crusting his own hands, then at Steve. “Thank you,” he said softly.

“Of course,” Steve said. “I would never leave you.” Seeing that the sentiment made the Asset uncomfortable, he added, “Besides, I liked Darcy last time I met her, thought I doubt she remembers me.”

The Asset thought back to their meeting at the pancake house. Darcy Lewis definitely remembered him. “Why’s that?” he asked.

“From what Thor told me, she’d just broken up with her boyfriend, so she got really drunk that night. She could barely stand up straight when I found her, much less hold a drink. She must have knocked hers over four or five times; I felt really bad for her.”

And here he thought she was kidding when she claimed to have spent the night pouring drinks over him. “I don’t think she was that drunk,” he said before he could stop himself.

“What makes you say that?” Steve asked, surprised. Understandable. the Asset had hardly been at the Christmas party.

“Because I know women, and you never did,” the Asset said. What was he even saying? “She wanted an excuse to put her hands all over you.”

Steve shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” the Asset agreed. “I can’t imagine why, either. Your ugly mug didn’t change.” He stopped, scared. This was not normal Asset behavior. Jokes and laughter were not allowed. Caring was not allowed.

This was _Barnes_ behavior. Barnes, James Buchanan, who everyone said was a charmer with the ladies and a good-hearted man who loved to make jokes. This was his doing.

Steve laughed. “That only makes it stranger. She looks so much like Becky, did you notice?”

The Asset—Barnes—he could only nod weakly. He could barely breathe; his lungs seemed to belong to a completely separate third person, neither Barnes nor the Asset. What was happening to him? Who was he becoming?

“I should make Tony look her up,” Steve continued. “Maybe she really is related to you.”

His hands were still covered in blood. He watched as the Asian woman came out of the bathroom, and then stood and practically ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. He didn’t notice Ian sitting on the toilet until he started scrubbing at the blood coating both hands.

“Are you…okay?” he asked awkwardly.

“She’ll be fine,” Ian said dully. “In a week, she’ll be running around like this never happened, yelling at me for not telling Captain America that she was dying so he would sing “The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan” as her last request. She’ll twist the story, start telling people that she Ramboed a whole platoon of soldiers before succumbing to her wounds, and I’ll laugh at it and remind her that she did nothing of the sort.”

“Oh,” the Asset said. He had known that their laughter and jokes were a front for something, but he hadn’t realized it was their way of coping with the strange events around them.

“We told you about how Darcy dislocated her kneecap, right?” Ian asked. At the Asset’s nod, he continued, “That’s how we usually tell it. But think of it like this: a small woman with no combat experience gets up to go to the bathroom. She’s followed by a much larger man, a warrior who’s already made a pass at her. Darcy was scared shitless.” He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “She’s going to make this story even more dramatic.”

All the pieces suddenly clicked into place. Of course Darcy had spent the night of the Christmas party next to Captain America; she was hardly going to interact with Thor’s friends if she’d thought one of them was going to rape her. Obviously, she wasn’t going to like his friends either. Ian’s own insistence that the one from Vanaheim was a good guy was his way of trying to help her get over her fear.

He didn’t know if it was Barnes or the Asset talking, but he promised himself that the next person to attempt an assault on Darcy Lewis would have their genitals crushed like grapes, aliens or not.

Before he knew what was happening, the metal arm rested on Ian’s shoulder and he himself was crouching next to the toilet, and he was telling Ian that he and Darcy would be safe and protected from whatever else the universe decided to throw at them, and if anything else decided to come at them, there would be hell to pay.

Ian smiled at his words. “I wish I could say we won’t need that,” he said. “But I’d just be lying, so—thank you.” He laughed a little. “I don’t even know what to call you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Asset said roughly. He stood slowly, walked out of the bathroom, and sank into a corner of the plane. Thankfully, both Steve and Ian left him alone until they landed in New York. He recognized it, somehow. His mind recognized the glittering skyline and then rebuilt it as it was when he was a small child riding in on a train with his father and a little girl named Becky to see the greatest city in the world.

The plane landed on the top of one of the skyscrapers, and the Asian woman—Dr. Cho—wheeled the Cradle out of the cargo hold, followed closely by Ian. A black man left the cockpit on Ian’s heels, and then it was only the Asset and Steve. “You should come inside,” Steve said finally. “You can sleep in a real bed, get cleaned up.”

The Asset stood and followed Steve out of the plane and into the enormous building. The room was enormous, with a bed big enough for three of him. He sat awkwardly on its corner. “Thanks.”

Steve looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he just shut the door. The Asset debated taking a shower and washing Darcy Lewis’s blood off his arms, but he instead sat on the bed for hours, trying to process everything that had happened.


	6. Pancakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy Lewis finally gets her goddamned pancakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor bashing of "flyover states," especially Iowa. Mostly because I still think it's bullshit that Iowa had an undefeated regular season last year.

After hours, he came to one conclusion: he had to leave. Darcy Lewis had gotten shot because of him. That Ian didn’t was a miracle. He couldn’t let anything happen to anybody else on his account, least of all Steve.

That decided, he stood and made his way toward the exit. All the lights were off, and everyone was in bed. He wondered vaguely what time it was.

Up ahead, he could see the elevator, which would take him out into New York City, where he could easily lose himself in the crowds of people. Then onto another city or state, far away from everyone in New York.

“Please tell me you aren’t trying to sneak out before dawn on me,” a voice said, more amused than it really had a right to be. “If you didn’t want to make me breakfast, you didn’t have to promise.”

The Asset spun around to see Darcy Lewis leaning on an IV in the middle of a truly enormous kitchen. “What the hell are you doing out of bed?” he asked softly. Part of him was just happy to see her walking, but the majority portion was angry. After a century, hadn’t he had enough of little kids who thought they were tougher than they were, who refused to listen to doctors and recruiting officers and common sense?

Darcy gave a half-shrug and a guilty smile. “I didn’t get breakfast,” she said. “Or lunch. Or dinner. Now it’s three in the morning and, I swear to God, all I need are some Pop-Tarts and a really big glass of…something that shouldn’t be alcoholic, considering the reasons I skipped all my meals today.”

The Asset snorted. “Sit,” he ordered. “I will make you real breakfast.”

Darcy slid into a barstool, eyeing him suspiciously. “Real breakfast?” she asked. “Pancakes, bacon, the works?”

“If you ask nicely, I could be talked into making potatoes and orange juice.”

Darcy gasped. “Marry me.”

The Asset snorted again. “I thought you were saving yourself for Captain America. I’m sure a Soviet war criminal will ruin your campaign worse than a Brit. Where would I find a bowl and a pan?”

Darcy shrugged. “I have no friggen clue. Check the cabinet thingies under the sink?”

He checked the cabinets under the sink, the cabinets under the island, and three closets before he located a cast-iron pan that was heavier than most commercial firearms and a bowl that still had a sticker on the side. “How about flour?” he asked.

She pointed at a set of double doors. “There’s Bisquick in the pantry, I think.”

The Asset shook his head. “Bisquick? Whatever happened to using flour like regular folks?”

“Convenience?” Darcy asked. “Same reason our consumption-driven culture marches on and all that.” She laughed. “So, like, is there anything special I should call you or something?”

He froze, hand wrapped around a carton of eggs. “I don’t know,” he forced out somehow.

“Hey, I’ll use anything. Eragon, Cthulhu, Jeff, whatever. Names are just reflections of the values of whoever gave it to you. They really don’t matter.”

That seemed awfully dark for someone who owned a purple backpack and a sparkly phone case with a puppy on it. “And what does Darcy Lewis mean?” he asked, determined to—at the very least—make a batch of pancakes without embarrassing himself.

“That my mom was fucking John Darcy from two floors up around the time of my birth.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment to register. “What?”

She nodded. “True story. Hey, can I trade potatoes for two eggs sunny-side up with the yolk runny enough that when I cut into them, they drip that runny deliciousness all over that stack of buttermilks you’re making?”

“Uh, sure,” the Asset said. “What do you mean, your mom was—”

“Fucking John Darcy from two floors up?” Darcy asked. “Well, my parents got married about four months before Will was born. It wasn’t exactly what people would call a love match. Well, not technically. Mom loved Dad’s high-paying job and super-rich friends. Dad loved Mom’s upper-class upbringing. And her super-rich friends, if we’re being real here. They finally got divorced when I was eleven, and Will and I heard a lot of shit during the custody hearings.”

“So your father is John Darcy?”

“Three paternity tests said it was Nick Lewis, so I doubt it. Oh sweet baby Jesus, that smells like I legit died and went to heaven. You should open a diner, or just let me swim in that pancake batter. Like, holy shit, I’ve never been so sexually attracted to pancakes before.”

The Asset stared at her. How could she talk so cavalierly about her parents’ divorce and how they didn’t love each other? “Call me James,” he decided suddenly.

“Okay, James,” Darcy said. “How do those pancakes smell so damn good though?”

“Buchanan family secret,” The Asset—James said. He slapped her hand as it inched closer to his batter bowl. “Stay out of the batter.”

“God, fine,” Darcy said. “You know, most people in their nineties are nicer to the people paying their Social Security.”

James gave her a look. “Do I look like I need Social Security?”

“Bro, I’ll take your check if you don’t want it. I’m gonna need the cash to pay off what I’m sure is going to be the worst insurance payment-slash-rental car bill of my life. I knew I should have put that shit on Ian’s card, but _no_ , I’m the twenty-five-year-old and that bitch is still only twenty-four, so I get the better rate.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I mean, we were supposed to return the car in New York, so we were only…nine states off? Whatever, I’ll charge it to Stark and hope for the best.”

James flipped the pancake onto a plate. “How many do you want to start with?” he asked. The pancake wasn’t totally golden-brown, but Darcy was eyeing it like Jim Morita used to eye the last bar of chocolate—as if it were more important than oxygen or water.

“Four, if you’re doing bacon and eggs,” Darcy said. “Seriously, I didn’t eat all fucking day. I could probably eat a bilgesnipe, and those apparently taste like lutefisk gone bad, according to Thor. But, like, lutefisk is already pretty much fish gone bad—I mean, it’s cured with fucking lye—so I don’t even know how bad that makes bilgesnipe. I’ve probably eaten worse. Every so often, Mom liked to pretend she was domestic and cook for us, but, like, she was heinous. Will took Home Ec throughout middle and high school so he could have dinner ready before mom came home. He makes a damn good apple pie.”

James decided not to ask and just handed her the pancake, along with a small bottle of syrup he found in the pantry. “Do you want butter or anything?”

Darcy shook her head. She poured the syrup along the middle of the pancake, then rolled it into a cylinder and took a big bite. “Holy ever-loving shit,” she said, mouth full. “This is so goddamn good.”

James shook his head and poured more batter into the pan. “So, like, I spent most of college living with two history majors and a World War II fangirl chem major, so I have to ask. Were you named after the president, or was that just the world’s greatest coincidence? Follow-up for my own personal satisfaction—where did Cap get Grant? Are you guys Presidential Patriot Buddies? Would they have picked y’all for the Commandos if your middle name was, like, Stalin or whatever?”

“Probably not,” James said. “They didn’t trust the Russians. And I wasn’t named after the president. Buchanan was my mom’s maiden name. And Grant was Steve’s dad’s war buddy.”

“No presidents?”

“No.”

“Damn. Presidential relations have significantly better odds of being elected, and I still hold out hope that he will become my First Lad.”

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Darcy was eating the pancakes as fast as James could turn them out.

“You shouldn’t leave,” Darcy said suddenly.

“What?”

“Idaho sucks,” she said. “Lots of gun crime. And the state of Wyoming has two escalators. And Alaska is _cold_ , I know they call you the Winter Soldier, but they have honest-to-god towns that don’t see direct sunlight for, like, two months. I mean, I guess if you wanted to you could go to, like, bumfuck Iowa or one of those crappy middle states, but then you’d have to tell people you’re living in Iowa. Doesn’t seem worth it.”

“And where’d you grow up?” he asked.

“Chicago.”

James snorted. “Isn’t that in a crappy middle state?”

“You can’t compare Chicago and _Iowa_. It’s like comparing apples and dog shit. Ask anyone. Well, anyone except Clint; I’m, like, ninety-eight-percent sure that boy is from Iowa. That’s not the point. You shouldn’t leave.”

James considered it for longer than he expected. “Why should I stay?” he asked. “I endanger everyone here.”

“Well, yeah,” Darcy said as if it were obvious. “But you also endangered the crap out of me and Ian in bumblefuck Idaho, and at least these guys can do things like _avoid_ being shot. It’s always a good idea to have back-up.” She stuck her fork into the pan and pulled the newly cooked pancake onto her plate. “Besides, if you stay here, I have a reason to visit. And I wasn’t kidding when I told Ian I plan on having Cap’s babies. Jesus fuck, did you bake these cakes with _crack_ instead of flour? Don’t trust any weird, white powders you find in Tony Stark’s house, are you stupid?”

“Well, who can argue with that logic?” James joked—something that felt both very natural and very weird. “And no, I didn’t make these with crack. I told you, it’s a secret Buchanan recipe.”

“Well, now you have to stay,” Darcy said. “I refuse to have to travel to a Dakota for these. No, wait, you should open your own diner! It can be presidential-themed, too, and you could have the Darcy that’s just a giant stack of these pancakes with that egg I was telling you about on top and then just a fuck-ton of bacon, like just carpet the plate in bacon. And you can jazz Fillmore’s thing, too, he deserves better than oatmeal. Okay, probably not, but he’s got the name of a champion even if he did jack shit in office. I don’t know, it’s something to consider. At least add, like, fruit to it. And take out the oatmeal. And add pancakes. The Fillmore Fruity Flapjacks! I love it. Okay, now you have to do it.”

James shook his head at her enthusiasm. “Go to bed,” he ordered. “We can talk about your ridiculous diner plans tomorrow.”

“So you’re staying?” Darcy asked.

James shrugged. “Might as well,” he said. “Like you said, you need a reason to visit Steve. Can hardly stand in the face of true love, can I?”

“Omigod,” Darcy said, a slow smile breaking over her face. “Can we hug? I feel like we should hug. This is one of those moments, I think.”

James put one arm around her and hugged her briefly. “Bed,” he ordered in a tone that brooked now argument. “ _Now_.”

Darcy shook her head and grumbled all the way down the hall, James following to make sure she actually went to her room. Once he was sure she wouldn’t be sneaking back into the kitchen, he let himself into his own room, lay down, and closed his eyes.

He slept like a baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually know anything about Idaho's rates of gun crime, but Darcy got shot there, so, like. Yeah.
> 
> Thanks for reading, guys.


End file.
